NORTH SHORE BOOK NOTES: 'Float' by JoeAnn Hart

Sunday

Mar 10, 2013 at 12:01 AMMar 10, 2013 at 10:14 AM

JoeAnn Hart went to Port Ellery, Maine, to create her unique assemblage of fabulously funny, hopelessly conflicted characters. Bearing a certain charming resemblance to “Moonrise Kingdom,” her new book, “Float,” entwines real human drama with earnest, intelligent characters doing and saying the absurd all while in search of something better. There isn’t a page that doesn’t produce a laugh. Not a page that doesn’t evoke a wince.

If you are in quest of quirky, one-of-a-kind characters, then go to the earth’s edges, to the islands, to the remote enclaves. JoeAnn Hart went to the Galapagos of civilization, Port Ellery, Maine, to create her unique assemblage of fabulously funny, hopelessly conflicted characters. Bearing a certain charming resemblance to “Moonrise Kingdom,” her new book, “Float,” entwines real human drama with earnest, intelligent characters doing and saying the absurd all while in search of something better. There isn’t a page that doesn’t produce a laugh. Not a page that doesn’t evoke a wince. You’ll savor every scene.

Readers discover the likable main character, Duncan Leland, in a heap of trouble. He took over the family business, Seacrest’s Ocean Products of Maine, and over time implemented improvements. He makes fertilizer from gurry, fish guts and skeletons. His recent upgrade of the waterfront processing plant was financially unwise; now he owes more than the business is worth. He can’t covert to condos because there’s a moratorium on non-marine use of property on that part of the town’s waterfront. Despondent and worried about meeting payroll, he accepts a loan from a couple of shady characters who appear to be wrangling for outright ownership of his business. Their real motives become clear later.

Duncan’s family home is an octagonal oddity perched on an ocean overlook. His mother Annabel, “a strong cup of grog,” hasn’t left the house since her husband disappeared in a boating accident a decade earlier. She’s feisty and nutty, and so is Duncan’s brother Nod. The two seem to be in constant cahoots. Duncan, a bit more grounded, is somewhat relieved to discover that the mulberry wine they love (Uncle Fern made casks of it) has hallucinogenic properties. Conversations between Duncan and Annabel are but one of the treats in “Float.”

Cora, Duncan’s wife, asks him to give her some space. He’s tense and she wants a little serenity. He briefly lives with his best friend Slocum, a chef of highly creative but questionable talents. Slocum is another of the prize characters. He is uniquely witty and everything out of his mouth is part genius, part hilarious. When he makes an appetizer using periwinkle and slices of mango, his friend asks, “Dude, does a snail really need fruit?” Slocum replies, “Fruit is the centerpiece of the primate diet. It’s why we like wine!”

Duncan’s rescue of a seagull caught in the loop of a plastic six-pack holder is caught on video and goes viral. It’s good publicity for Port Ellery’s enterprises, which include the rescue of gulls trying to survive the hazards of human intervention and for the resurrected installation artist Adoniram, who repurposes the waste and litter and exhibits it in creative ways. It’s also the moral core of “Float.”

Hart writes from her home in Gloucester, Mass., which bears a striking and pleasing resemblance to Port Ellery. She’s thoroughly absorbed the maritime culture. The book is pitch-perfect and stays precisely on point. It’s one enormous aquarium swimming with maritime references. It’s never forced because she’s done it with affection and respect and skill.

There are many levels to “Float,” from its relentlessly comic banter to its examination of relationships mired by misunderstandings to the parallel presentation of an ocean community struggling with its reliance on a way of life that’s quickly growing out of reach and its very real identification with that outmoded livelihood. All of this cast in a maritime milieu that never wavers. And all of this presented against a backdrop of a world being strangled and overtaken by its litter and garbage, by “the ugly consequences of human excess,” as Annuncia, Duncan’s general manager, puts it. Hart does a remarkable job of keeping this excess front and center but in a way that’s never deliberate, fake or intrusive. It’s a stellar model of eco-literature and should be viewed as such.

Rae Padilla Francoeur’s memoir, “Free Fall: A Late-in-Life Love Affair,” is available online or in bookstores. Write her at rae.francoeur@verizon.net. Or read her blog at http://www.freefallrae.blogspot.com/ or follow her @RaeAF.